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I'm surprised to see that, to the best of my searching abilities, there's no thread dedicated to this one, given it's near-mythic status around these parts. So I thought I'd start one.

Actually, I'm hoping someone can explain to me what exactly constitutes a Martinez. My (admittedly very thin) selection of cocktail books has a couple of different recipes: Savoy and the Official Mixer's Manual both call for equal parts gin and dry vermouth, with orange bitters and either curacao or maraschino. Joy of Mixology calls for 2 parts gin to 1 part sweet vermouth, with maraschino and Angostura bitters. CocktailDB splits the difference, calling for equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, with aromatic bitters and simple syrup, but also gives a variation of near-equal parts gin a dry vermouth, with orange bitters and curacao or maraschino.

Is there a definitive Martinez? Dry or sweet vermouth? Ratio of vermouth to gin? Orange or aromatic bitters? Liqueur or simple syrup?

There are several variation of the Martinez cocktail floating around. They all have Gin, Vermouth, Maraschino and bitters in them, just depends mainly if it is a gin based drink or a vermouth based drink.

I am sure Splif can answe more definitively, but from what I remember the first mention of the martinez was in the Thomas bar guide in which is was 2/3 sweet vermouth and 1/3 Old Tom gin, 2 dashes (1/8oz?) maraschino and one dash orange bitters.

Given it was 2 oz of sweet vermouth and an ounce of Old Tom it was a very sweet drink. It has changed over the years to reverse the proportions so that it is now 2oz gin and 1oz sweet vermouth, 1/4 oz maraschino and 1 dash orange bitters.

That is the "house" recipe at many bars here in NYC if you ask for a martinez. There are some variations floating around. We do one at PDT where it is 1.5oz beefeater, 1.5oz carpano antica, 1/4oz maraschino and 1-2 dashes of orange or abbott's like bitters.

Phil at D&C has been playing around with a Punt e Mes version as well which is pretty amazing.

For me I prefer a slightly sweeter variation of the Martinez, hence the 50/50 gin/carpano.

John Deragon

foodblog 1 / 2--I feel sorry for people that don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day -- Dean Martin

The oldest recipe of the Martinez of which I am aware is from Jerry Thomas:

1 wine-glass of Vermouth (2 oz)
1 pony of Old Tom gin (1 oz)
2 dashes of Maraschino (1/4 oz?)
1 dash of Boker's bitters
Garnish with a quarter-slice of lemon in the glass (not sure if this means fruit or just peel)

I would imagine that the vermouth back in those days was perhaps somewhat closer to Carpano Antica Formula -- which is to say, richer, less sweet and more herbal/bitter than Cinzano or M&R. JT says, "If the guest prefers it very sweet, add two dashes of gum syrup," which makes me believe that he thought it was already a sweet drink.

Other recipes that come fairly soon after JT specify equal parts gin and vermouth, other kinds of bitters (or just generic "bitters") and leave out the maraschino in favor of either curaçao (which, per previous discussions here, was often so sweet and lacking in orange flavor that it was used as a generic sweetener) or just simple syrup. Even as recently as the Savoy Cocktail Book, the recipe for the Martinez is comprised of equal parts gin (no longer Old Tom) and vermouth with orange bitters and either curaçao or maraschino (curaçao being listed first). I'm not sure how we came to believe that maraschino is what makes a Martinez a Martinez, except that maraschino is in the earliest recipe we have.

Interestingly, the Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book does not have a Martinez recipe. It does, however, have a Martini recipe consisting of equal parts Old Tom gin and Italian vermouth with orange bitters, a lemon twist and an olive garnish. With the exception of the olive, it's not dissimilar from recipes for the Martinez published 40 years earlier.

As John points out, just as with many old cocktails such as the Manhattan, the ratio of gin to vermouth has been reversed in modern incarnations of the drink and now it is common to see a 2:1 ratio of gin to sweet vermouth (although, just as with the Martini and Manhattan, it is often rewarding to mix the drink in equal parts or even return to the vermouth-based original). One interesting modern Martinez-inspired drink that I like very much was developed by Chad Solomon. It consists of 2 ounces of gin, 1 ounce of bianco vermouth (a sweet white vermouth), 1/4 ounce of maraschino and a few dashes of bitters (John's Abbot's bitters being my preferred for this drink).

Nathan, can you elaborate on brands a bit? I'd think half an ounce of Luxardo maraschino would overpower all the other flavours, so I've love to know what types of gin, vermouth and maraschino you're using!

Nathan, can you elaborate on brands a bit? I'd think half an ounce of Luxardo maraschino would overpower all the other flavours, so I've love to know what types of gin, vermouth and maraschino you're using!

plymouth or citadelle. Martini Bianco or Carpano Antica depending upon which route I want to go with the vermouth (nothing overpowers CA!)...I like a lot of funkiness in my maraschino drinks. 2 dashes you're not even going to notice.

Practically speaking, dashes from an open liquor bottle are going to be a lot bigger than dashes from a bitters bottle with a "dasher top." I almost always take "two dashes" of something such as maraschino, curaçao, grenadine or simple syrup that comes in a bottle to mean "somewhere between a quarter-ounce and a teaspoon." I'd say that's plenty enough to notice, and for my taste, even with something like Carpano Antica Formula (and certainly with M&R Bianco), I'd find a half ounce of Luxardo maraschino dominating the drink. YMMV, of course.

I make mine similar to the Jerry Thomas one. 2:1 Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth to gin, dash of maraschino, and Boker's Bitters.

I use the Ransom "Old Tom" gin, which is fantastic. Probably this drink is sweet enough not to require it, but if you don't use Old Tom style gin, you may want to put a few drops of simple syrup to approximate it. A "perfect" Martinez (with half dry vermouth and half sweet) is also pretty good, IIRC.

I've also made a twist that I call the Dirty Sanchez, replacing the Maraschino with Cynar, and flaming an orange peel over it, sort of like how the Little Italy is to the Manhattan (I leave the bitters in, though):http://www.runawaysq...-dirty-sanchez/

I'm pretty close to saying that the Martinez is my "last drink." I've settled into a 2:1:1/4:2 dashes ratio for a while now, but I'll fiddle now and then. Take, for instance, this, which is a tweak based on the early Death's Door bottling and the odd Paolo Lazzaroni Lazzaroni & Figli maraschino -- odd because not funky like Luxardo -- which needs a punch in the face from the Leopold Bros.:

I sniffed the Death's Door and the Decanter bitters in sequence, and thought about that Leopold Bros. stuff, which is tricky to use but seemed suited in this case. If I had used Luxardo, I don't think it would have worked nearly as well; the toned-down maraschino did.

Perhaps more importantly, which sweet vermouth? Whether the light Dolin or a heavier Cocchi VdT or Cinzano, the drink should work. In my opinion, Carpano's Antica, as a vanilla vermouth, overwhelms this drink every time whichever the gin.

Perhaps more importantly, which sweet vermouth? Whether the light Dolin or a heavier Cocchi VdT or Cinzano, the drink should work. In my opinion, Carpano's Antica, as a vanilla vermouth, overwhelms this drink every time whichever the gin.

"Cocchi VdT"?

"Cocchi Vermouth de Turin", maybe?

Am I to understand that Haus Alpenz will soon be bringing in another Italian Vermouth, perhaps in the Turin style?

I was unaware that Cocchi even made a Vermouth.

---Erik EllestadIf the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck...Bernal Heights, SF, CA

Perhaps more importantly, which sweet vermouth? Whether the light Dolin or a heavier Cocchi VdT or Cinzano, the drink should work. In my opinion, Carpano's Antica, as a vanilla vermouth, overwhelms this drink every time whichever the gin.

"Cocchi VdT"?

"Cocchi Vermouth de Turin", maybe?

Am I to understand that Haus Alpenz will soon be bringing in another Italian Vermouth, perhaps in the Turin style?

What can we call this? Last night we made a cocktail of 2 parts gin, 1 part Bonal Gentiane, and a dash of rhubarb bitters. It was delicious. I totally love Bonal.

Basically I was trying to make a Martinez, but we don't have maraschino anything. I subbed the rhubarb for angostura, since it's pretty sweet, tastes like cherries to me, and I can't figure out what to do with it anyway.

The Martinez is probably my favorite non-rum cocktail. It was one of those revelatory moments for me when I had one done right. I think KP Rick had a Martinez roundup a year or two ago in which he and several others settled on a tweak of Jamie Boudreau's formulation as being the perfect ratios of ingredients. The final iteration from that discussion is basically what I have settled on as the perfect Martinez.